"Don't Explain; Learn by Doing"

[MahoSenshi]

Those who really want explanations AND don't want to waste everyone's time, can read/watch something beforehand.
I hate players who walk blind and then request tactics/strat (unless its a coordination issue like who goes to each corner in Nidhogg EX) at each boss.

[Culfinrandir]

The thing is, if you have no idea as to why a certain mechanic is killing you then you can run it a billion times and still not learn anything. Sometimes it's essential for some explaining, like when it's required to have a certain status from a marker to survive a mechanic but every instinct tells you to *never* stand in the AoE puddle. If you don't stand in it you'll wipe for eternity.

[Shurrikhan]

In a group like that, with some new, but some of those new people not wanting any pre-info, stick only to the things that are learned by punishment. Ozma's triangle form and acceleration bomb, for instance, give no clue of what's to come. You just hopefully notice when or why some massive jolt of pain occurred. Final Steps of Faith on the other hand, until Ex version, hasn't got a single mechanic you haven't seen before, and marks every single one of them for the raid. A person with decent internet and/or increased movement speed can zone out and just dodge the red zones, step into the stack zone, and they're good. So, just let them be until people (usually the laggier) are obviously having trouble. ("It will either be Hot Wings, which forces you inward from the sides, or Hot Tail, which forces you outward to the sides—start between the edges of those two different option's AoEs so you can dodge either possibility.") Mark kill order preferences. Type "LB!" with an attached spammable sound effect if needed. At that point you shouldn't get in trouble with anyone, but your clear time should be basically unchanged.

tldr; People don't need to know all the mechanics. They just need to know how to situate themselves for certain combinations thereof. Most of that will be obvious, but correct or advise as needed if it's not.

[Malicewolf]

Honestly, I find wall of text macro's to be annoying, but not walls of text written out (or at least spread out decently if in macro). Because when you get so much text all of a sudden to read that you have to enlarge your chat box to full size just to read the start of it, then it feels like it's a race to finish reading it as quickly as possible so everyone can get started.

But if you write it out or spread out the macro into decently sized steps, people can read along and actually take in what you said while you are writing the next part. To me, this is a world of difference. I can take my time to read what you write vs I feel like I have to skim and say "got it" as quickly as possible so as not to hold up the entire party.

[Estellios]

Another thing that helps but is a little more work is to only really bring up stuff when it's soon to be relevant, as long as there is a moment to do so. Most non-extreme, non-savage content gives you some breathing room between phase changes to throw in a quick macro message or type something if you're decently quick.

Using the Weeping City as an example, I'd tell the alliance to "run into the green puddles/orbs while the boss is casting mega death" right after the adds are dead, since you get a few seconds and it's going to be relevant immediately after and will still be fresh in their minds. I also tell groups "turn for assimilation against the Ozma Shade" when Ozma uses black hole and everyone gets sucked in since there's a good couple of seconds of that animation where you can't do anything.

Throwing out all the mechanics before a fight starts when you won't see several of them until halfway into it doesn't let people retain the information.

[Leigaon]

No harm in going over the fight before hand. There are some things that can help out by knowing what to look for..other times you're just screwed doesn't matter how many times you read it. For me personally, the text will tell me some things but there are other things I have to see for myself and word them in a way I understand it more..so I admit, I'll have the wall of text, read it and still screw up like a champ.

The hostility I face usually comes from the "GOOOOO" guy, or from the veteran and his friend who have already cleared this place a bunch and, because they don't personally see the value in explanation, think all attempts at describing mechanics are a huge waste of time.

These are the guys that are the most annoying on the opposite end of the situation here. What annoys me a bit is that I believe these people likely died a few times themselves. It wasn't annoying so much for them I'm sure at that time. Best to take a few minutes and let someone learn something that might help them. But hey, these snowflakes are important IRL!

Then again, some people can't be taught. We ran this last night and our team kept wiping, I mean bad at the sphere of death. People explained the mechanics but for some reason our white mage kept moving to the wrong side with meteors, not esuna bleeding. Tank kept dying, the dragoon was doing the same and standing in the line of sight of the beam in its square mode. One guy finally said to us "Just tell us, what is it you're having trouble with?" well besides the meteors, some people were saying how they were dying instantly from the cubes over their heads. It was explained...our healer left, we got a new one. Tank DC'ed, we came back and we were able to crawl by even with a few mistakes.

[Sida]

When it comes to the new light party dungeons, I usually ask if the others are fine with one blind attempt on the bosses before they shed around the advice. That's only three other people and most of the time they are quite fine with it. When it comes to the larger group content I'm quite fine with getting some information before the boss, but I sorta don't like the huge text wall / ascii graphic help macros. Mostly because they are so spammy that they stop being helpful for me. Preferably on the first attempt with new players give out few notes that while failed can kill whole group but not try to explain the whole fight. It just goes over the head before seeing the stuff.

[Maero]

I also prefer to go in blind and look at it this way, those who have posted videos were once new to the fight at some point also and none were there to explain to them.
I do not oppose however explaining to new people as i also do it when i can.

[Xenos88]

I usually just explain boss fights, just so that the new guys can understand it better. If other people have an issue with well tough noogies

[Brill_]

Not everyone is going to retain a wall of text explanation. I know I don't. Seeing the mechanic for myself combined some explanation usually makes things click for me.